EU Panel OKs Report on CIA Flights

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Britain, Poland, Germany, Italy and other EU nations knew about secret CIA flights over Europe and the abduction of terror suspects by U.S. agents, according to a report approved by a special committee of the European Parliament on Tuesday.

The report, the conclusion of a yearlong investigation into CIA activities in Europe, also accused EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and other high-ranking officials of failing to fully cooperate with the probe. It also called for unspecified sanctions against member states found to have violated EU human rights principles.

But, in a crucial amendment pushed through by the conservatives who opposed the document, the report said there is no evidence that CIA secret prisons were based in Poland _ an allegation that prompted the investigation in November 2005.

The report, drafted by Italian Socialist Giovanni Fava, was backed by Socialists and Liberals; center-right deputies rejected it as ideological, biased and inaccurate.

It was also criticized by some of the 13 EU nations implicated, including Germany and Ireland.

"Instead of highlighting ways in which extraordinary rendition could be prevented in the future, the report indulges in political point-scoring," said Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern.

While thin on proof, the committee said information came from secret documents and confidential sources, including records of meetings between EU, NATO and senior U.S. State Department officials and dozens of hours of testimony by individuals who said they were kidnapped by U.S. agents in Europe and transferred to secret prisons.

It also obtained information from Eurocontrol, the EU's air safety agency, according to which more than 1,200 undeclared CIA flights entered European airspace since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

"We have uncovered serious breaches of human rights. We recognize the need to combat terrorism but this can only be done using legal methods," said Wolfgang Kreissl-Doerfler, a Socialist member of the committee.

But members of the European People's Party, the largest political grouping in the European Parliament, argued that much of the report was based on hearsay.

"The report is full of phrases like 'we believe' or 'we think' _ that's unacceptable. It did not come up with anything we would not have known, but it did manage to split the assembly according to who's pro-American and who's anti-American," said Italian conservative Jas Gawronski.

The committee says the secret CIA flights breached the Chicago Convention, an international treaty governing air traffic that requires aircraft used in military, customs and police operations to seek special authorization to land in signatory states.

In addition, secret detention without trial is illegal in Europe, and governments found to have helped U.S. transfer suspects to secret prisons would violate the continent's human rights treaties.

Such countries could face sanctions from fellow member states or even lose their voting rights, but it was unlikely EU leaders would sanction a country based on the parliamentary report. No EU governments have admitted that the alleged anti-terror operations were carried out on their soil.

The European Parliament, which itself cannot impose sanctions on EU member states, has urged EU leaders to ensure against future extraordinary renditions in Europe.

Allegations that CIA agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers were first reported in 2005.

In September, President Bush acknowledged that terrorism suspects have been held in CIA-run prisons overseas, but did not specify where. Last week, Britain's government said that it knew "in general terms" about a secret CIA prison network before Bush's acknowledgment of the program's existence.